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NEWS-2.3.0
Welcome to Freeciv 2.3.0 Thanks again to all our developers, who continue to work so hard. This release includes lots of changes relative to 2.2.x; the significant ones are outlined below. Bug fixes also included in the 2.2 line are not listed. Those who are interested in seeing the detailed changes should check the ChangeLog file. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 2.2 As well as many new features, many features from Longturn and some from Warclient have been merged into the main codebase for this release. A new program has been added to the Freeciv suite: 'freeciv-modpack'. This makes it easier to download and install add-ons ('modpacks': rulesets, tilesets, etc) to the right place; you can enter a URL, choose an add-on from the list, and the tool will install it to the correct place for this version of Freeciv to use it. Modpack authors should see this page for details of how to publish modpacks for installation by this program. As is usual for major releases, 2.3 clients cannot interoperate with pre-2.3 servers, and vice versa. Pre-2.3 savegames can however be loaded into 2.3, and in most cases, the supplied rulesets have not changed so much as to make it difficult to complete a game started with 2.2.x's rules. Server / General Gameplay *Various limits have been lifted, including: **Maximum number of simultaneous players increased from 30 to 126 **Map size ***Maximum map size increased from 30,000 to 128,000 tiles; maximum linear map dimensions increased from 254 to 512 ***Minimum map size reduced to 16x16(!) **Allow goto paths that take more than 99 turns *There are now more ways of specifying the map size. Instead of specifying the size in thousands of tiles (via the 'size' option), you can specify the number of tiles per player ('tilesperplayer'), or the exact X and Y sizes ('xsize' and 'ysize'). The method is selected with the 'mapsize' option. *A number of new server settings have been added to customise gameplay: **'killunhomed': units without a home city (such as starting units) can be configured to lose hitpoints each turn until they die. **'unreachableprotects' controls whether 'unreachable' units (such as Bombers) protect the whole stack on their tile as in previous versions. If this is unset, a mixed stack is vulnerable to attack (including normally-unreachable units). **'unitwaittime' allows a minimum time to be enforced between actions of a given unit on successive turns, to mitigate the 'double-move problem'. **'restrictinfra' allows enemy use of infrastructure such as roads and rails to be restricted. **'airliftingstyle' allows airlifts between allied cities, and unlimited airlifts per turn. **'techlost_recv'/'techlost_donor' allow introduction of a risk of technology loss when technologies are transferred between civilizations (via diplomacy, espionage, conquest etc). **'trading_tech'/'trading_gold'/'trading_city' allow certain types of diplomatic agreements to be selectively disabled. , **'globalwarming'/'nuclearwinter' allow these global catastrophes to be disabled. **'team_pooled_research' allows pooled research to be disabled. **'alliedvictory': all players in an alliance can share victory. This new behaviour is enabled by default. *''(as of rc1)'' Changes to the 'timeout' setting now always have immediate effect, as in 2.0.x; previously, changes between non-zero values would not take effect until the next turn. *Improvements to observing: **The demographic report is now available to global observers. **Global observers can now view the city report (it shows cities from all nations). **Global observers can now access the buildable target list in the city dialog. *The number of units built, killed, etc now contributes to the final score, and appears in the endgame report. *Changing a unit's activity is now more forgiving: if you accidentally stop an activity such as irrigation, but restart it without doing anything else, progress is no longer lost. Clerical *Settings configuration on the client and server has been reworked. The most notable change is that enumerated and bitwise options are now set with strings instead of numbers (for instance, '/set barbarians hordes' instead of 4, '/set topology wrapx|wrapy' instead of 3). *The FREECIV_PATH environment variable can be overridden by three new variables: FREECIV_DATA_PATH, FREECIV_SAVE_PATH, and FREECIV_SCENARIO_PATH. *Add-ons are now loaded from a sub-path ~/.freeciv// (e.g., ~/.freeciv/2.3/), since they tend to be specific to a version of Freeciv. *Servers send more information to the metaserver: **The 'timeout' and 'aifill' options ( ); **''(as of beta2)'' the number of human players (as opposed to AIs) ( ); as of beta3 this is displayed in the client ( ) *New server command '/kick' and associated option 'kicktime' to lock out troublesome users. *New server commands '/ignore', '/unignore', and '/list ignored users', allowing players to suppress chat messages from specific users. *The '/create' command can now create a new player even in a running game. *New command '/lua' to execute a line of Lua script on the server command line. *More options have been added to the '/reset' command. *The name of the scorelog file is configurable with the new 'scorefile' option. *The current ruleset can be shown by '/show rulesetdir' instead of '/rulesetdir' (this allows less privileged users to do so). *Observers can see the current votes in progress with the new command '/list votes'. *The server uses a new format for savegames. It can load savegames generated by old versions of Freeciv, but old versions will not be able to load new savegames. ** Support has been added for future versions of Freeciv to save backward-compatible savegames (back to 2.3.0) via the 'saveversion' server option. Clients *Various report screens have been reworked so as not to redraw and lose their selections after a few seconds. *The total revenue from trade routes is now visible in the city report. *The chat log file name is now configurable. *''(GTK)'' Some rework of the pregame connection screen and menus ( ). Buttons on this screen now adapt to selected player/user ( ). *''(GTK)'' Tab completion of user and player names on the chatline. *''(GTK)'' The goto/airlift dialog now shows which nation each city belongs to, and more detail on airlift capacity. *The research report is now updated when tax rates or city science output change. *''(as of beta2)'' Improve handling of (non-default) rulesets which restrict reachability of technologies (via root_req in the ruleset) in the science report. You can now choose whether unreachable technologies are displayed. , , etc *''(as of beta2)'' (Xaw) The Take Player command is implemented. *''(as of rc1)'' In 2.2.x, the "Sell Obsolete" button in the Economy report could never be pressed. It has been renamed to "Sell Redundant", and now lets 'redundant' buildings be sold en masse (redundant buildings are those whose effects are entirely superseded by another, for which you may still be paying upkeep -- for instance, Power Plants are redundant in cities with a Hydro/Nuclear/Solar Plants). In the Gtk client, the "Obsolete" column in the Economy report has been replaced with a "Redundant" column showing how many of each building in your empire are redundant. Gameplay / Rules Changes affecting supplied rulesets *Two new rulesets are included in the distribution: **multiplayer: a ruleset based on the default but tuned for multiplayer games, based on Madeline Book's "rewonder" ruleset for 2.1. **experimental: a ruleset showcasing new features of the Freeciv "engine", without strict regard for game balance and playability. It enables some of the new features mentioned below, such as variable city radii. *More than doubled the number of playable nations (from 185 to 385). Many improvements to existing nations, such as using native spellings for cities and leaders. *The interaction of promotions and diplomat-vs-diplomat contests has changed: **Attacking diplomats can now gain experience; previously, only defending diplomats gained experience. **The effect of veterancy on the outcome of these contests has been reduced; it can change the odds by at most 20% (previously, elite diplomats could become practically invincible). *The terrain effects of global warming and nuclear winter are now more severe: land can be lost to ocean (and vice versa), and glaciers can melt. *If migration occurs, citizens take half the food in the granary with them. *''(as of rc1)'' In rulesets with Fundamentalism, it now has a happiness penalty for empire size (as it did in 2.0.x). *''(as of rc2)'' The civ2 ruleset now uses a restricted set of 25 nations, to better resemble the original game. Loading civ2 savegames from older versions of Freeciv may cause nations to be reassigned; it will not be possible to load a civ2 savegame with more than 23 (non-barbarian) players. New features for ruleset/modpack/scenario authors These features have been added to the Freeciv "engine", but aren't enabled in standard rulesets (except the experimental ruleset, in some cases). *Variable city radius: the circle of tiles able to be worked by a city is no longer fixed but can vary (radii from 1 to 5 possible) depending on requirements defined by the ruleset. **Accordingly, the maximum value for the 'citymindist' server option has been increased from 5 to 9. *Build slots: in ruleset-defined circumstances, cities with large production surpluses can now produce more than one of a given type of unit per turn. *Tech upkeep: rulesets can cause some research output to be diverted to maintaining expertise in existing technology rather than discovering new technology, with the risk of losing advances if the upkeep is not met (similar to gold upkeep for city improvements). *Rulesets can define units that can be converted into another type of unit on the player's command. *Rulesets can define "Capturable" units that can be captured by certain other "Capturer" units. (There is an associated server option 'homecaughtunits'.) *Rulesets can suggest or mandate server settings. , *A start position in a scenario can now be restricted to a set of nations rather than a single nation. The built-in editor now supports editing this set. *Various improvements to Lua scripting. See Events Reference Manual for some more detail. Tilesets / Art *New default tileset with redrawn terrain graphics: "Amplio 2". The original Amplio tileset is available for 2.3 as an add-on (it can be found with the freeciv-modpack utility). *Larger versions of flags and shields are now included in the Freeciv distribution for use by larger tilesets; they are used in Amplio2 (as of beta4). Translations *''(as of rc2)'' New Scottish Gaelic localization (complete). *''(as of beta3)'' New Irish Gaelic localization (not yet complete: 55%). *Updated translations: **Complete translations: Polish, French, Spanish, Catalan, and British English. **Incomplete translations: Danish (95.8%), Finnish (85%), Ukrainian (81%), Italian (74%), Japanese (70%), Brazilian Portuguese (70%), Russian (69%), Swedish (60%), Lithuanian (43%), and Simplified Chinese (40%). WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 2.3.0-RC2 For those who've been trying the betas, the changes since the final Release Candidate (2.3.0-RC2) are very minor: *Completed translation for Scottish Gaelic. *Updated translations for Catalan, Ukrainian, Polish, and French. See NEWS for older lists of changes. KNOWN ISSUES * There are some regressions in the SDL client relative to 2.2.x: ** The city dialog has not been redesigned to accommodate the larger city map required by variable city radius support. As a result, the city map display is scaled down and difficult to read. ** Not all setting types can now be modified; bitwise and color settings are not yet supported. Category:NEWS